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Waymo and Cruise hope to expand their plans to a greater part of the city. But the local government is concerned about breakdowns caused by traffic jams.
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By Cade Metz
San Francisco-based Cade Metz has been writing about the progression of autonomous driving for more than a decade.
Last week, a self-driving car pulled up in the middle of a busy street in the morning rush hour in San Francisco, blocking traffic for nearly two miles. The car, which was driving through Waymo, didn’t leave the intersection until corporate technicians arrived about 10 minutes later and chased it manually.
Based in San Francisco and Phoenix, Waymo, the self-driving car company owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet, is one of two companies operating so-called driverless robotaxis. The other, Cruise, a subsidiary of General Motors, offers service in San Francisco.
They are the culmination of more than 10 years of research, progress and testing across either company. After making a multibillion-dollar investment in technology, the two announce that they will soon introduce autonomous vehicles in other cities as well. To conduct themselves in certain situations, some local officials wonder if they are in conditions of widespread use.
Autonomous driving stuck at intersection @Waymo pic. twitter. com/Ov8ImRhML4
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